In Quebec, however, cannabis news has revolved around the newly elected government’s plans to open fewer stores than planned, raise the age for cannabis users, and ban cannabis smoking and vaping in public places.

The conservative-populist Coalition Avénir du Québec (CAQ) rose to power last October with 37.4% of the popular vote—enough to deliver them a majority government, under which they expected to set their legislative plans in motion quickly.

The CAQ’s Cannabis Vision

From the beginning of the discussion about legalization, the CAQ has adamantly stressed they would take a “hard line” against anything that “normalizes” cannabis.

One of the government’s first plans was to overhaul the provincial Cannabis Regulation Act passed by the outgoing Liberal government. Though that legislation was already Canada’s most stringent set of laws around legal cannabis, the CAQ believed they had gone nowhere near far enough.

Throughout the electoral campaign, the CAQ promised it would raise the age of consumption from 18 (the same as for alcohol and tobacco) to 21, would ban cannabis smoking and vaping in public places including sidewalks and parks (without extending the same ban to tobacco), and would force the government-run Société Québécoise du Cannabis (SQDC) stores even farther from universities and colleges.

One problem for the CAQ is the enormous popularity of cannabis in Quebec. By late January, Quebeckers had purchased 35% of Canada’s legal adult-use products.

“Young people from 18 to 21 will go on the black market to buy cannabis,” said then CAQ leader (now Quebec Premier) François Legault, “but I don’t want, as premier of Quebec, to send the signal that it’s normal to consume cannabis below the age of 21. […] It’s terrible what cannabis can do to youth.”

Within days of the CAQ’s election in October, the government asked Ministry of Health staffers and the Quebec Institute of Public Health for research to justify the party’s plan to raise the age of consumption from 18 to 21. Experts, however, delivered the same research they had given to the outgoing Liberal government—they recommend the age remain 18. This response was not well received by Quebec’s new government.

Legault and the CAQ were not alone in their concerns: a majority of Quebeckers polled in November supported raising the age to 21, while the Quebec Federation of Medical Specialists supported the bill, saying in a statement, “any measure to push back the age of first cannabis consumption is favourable to the health of young Quebeckers.”

Though Legault and the CAQ seemed to have grasped by November that some aspects of their plan went farther than most Quebeckers wanted it to. Quebec is the only province in Canada to set a maximum allowable possession amount per dwelling (150 grams), and while the CAQ campaigned on a promise to cut that down by 90% to 15 grams, that provision had disappeared by the time Bill 2 reached the National Assembly.

In mid-December, Carmant puzzlingly tweeted that his government had an additional $25-million for cannabis “prevention, education, and intervention for youths aged 6 to 21”—which would double the $25-million already available in the Cannabis Prevention and Research Fund created by the Liberal government. (Those funds alone must be spent by the end of the fiscal year in March 31.) Carmant’s attaché clarified, “There’s certainly an intention,” but the promise was not “tied 100%” [presumably to Carmant’s stated goals]. That explained why the additional $25-million commitment did not appear in the government’s economic update, the party’s financial framework, or the recently tabled Bill 2. Quebec’s Treasury Council confirmed Carmant never requested the additional funds, and the next day Carmant was forced to retract his tweet, saying, “I went too quickly on the amounts involved.”

The Quebec Association for Public Health recently challenged the entire basis for Carmant’s claims about cannabis damaging developing brains, noting it is “impossible for the moment to draw conclusive conclusions” based on brain-imaging studies of young occasional cannabis users.

The Consultations on—and Fights over—Bill 2 Begin

This was the context in which the CAQ launched its public consultations into Bill 2 in mid-February. And from the beginning, many of the experts were absent, including the Association of Emergency Medical Specialists, the Quebec Council on Tobacco and Health, and the Quebec Provincial Police Association (APPQ).

Liberal health critic André Fortin assailed the consultations as “fake […] a phoney exercise, a sideshow.” He stressed that Carmant had been clear he wanted Bill 2 passed as early as March, which meant there was little possibility of amendments. However, the Liberals invited groups of their own choosing to participate in the consultation. Principal among these was Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante, who attended the consultations last week and argued banning cannabis in public was unfair to Montrealers, two-thirds of whom are renters and may not be allowed to use cannabis in their apartments.

Plante joined other critics in opposing the plan to raise the age to 21. In both cases, she stressed the provincial government was violating municipal autonomy by refusing to consider that cities know best how to address the specific needs of their populations.

Yet after Montreal Mayor Laplante’s comments, Legault appeared to soften some of his tone. He was adamant he would not budge on plans to raise the age and ban smoking or vaping cannabis in public— “My objective is clear,” he said. “I don’t want children in public spaces to be exposed to cannabis smoke.” However, for the first time he suggested that consumers could use edibles and other consumables in public after those products are legalized in October and come to market in the subsequent months.

The Quebec public is in a strange position as Bill 2’s consultations continue. Though in polls many claim to be opposed to legalization, in practice the province with 23% of the Canadian population consumes 35% of the nation’s legal cannabis. That demand is bound to place pressure on Legault, and his softened stance on edibles may be proof of that. Nonetheless, the CAQ is the most ideologically rigid government to hold power in Quebec in some time, and long before they came to power they promised they would show cannabis no mercy.

The CAQ government’s retro-prohibitionist stance may alienate increasing numbers of cannabis users and Quebeckers in general.

Even the appeal of massive tax revenues has done little to charm the normally pro-business Legault.

When the Bill 2 hearings end, few will be surprised if—as promised—Carmant and Legault do nothing to change the Bill’s provisions on age and public use. But this moment seems to be one in which Quebec as a whole is beginning to reconsider its relationship with cannabis, whose use is widespread but whose profile remains negative.

As more and more Quebeckers buy and enjoy legal cannabis—and demand their government find ways to make cannabis products more available in brick and mortar stores—the CAQ government’s retro-prohibitionist stance may alienate increasing numbers of cannabis users and Quebeckers in general, leaving the party to decide how firmly it wishes to hold to its strident anti-cannabis position.

The law will most likely be passed, but how it will ultimately be received is uncertain, and might well be one piece of the party’s undoing in a province proving week by week that it’s far friendlier to cannabis than many surveys implied, and many Quebeckers wanted to admit.